On November 1, 2010, the new Alberta Rules of Court are scheduled to come into force, repealing the current Rules of Court. The New Rules represent a dramatic change to the procedural landscape of litigation in Alberta, and everything from timelines to case management has undergone significant and material change

The fair value assessment of the shares of an early-stage public oil sands company was at stake in a long-awaited decision of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta in “Deer Creek Energy Limited v. Paulson & Co., Inc. et al”.

In January 2008, the Sedona Canada Working Group released
its final draft of the Sedona Canada Principles Addressing
Electronic Discovery, a set of principles appropriate and
suitable for electronic discovery in Canada.

Records retention poses an increasing risk to businesses from the perspective of management and operations. The explosion in the frequency of use and amount of electronic records, including e-mail, has created a need to carefully manage records of all types, lest a company run afoul of the growing number of statutory requirements being enacted, as well as the evolving common law standards.

Most shareholders agreements allow shareholders to sell their shares, subject to certain rights granted to the other parties to the agreement. The recent Alberta case Zust Bachmeier International Air Cargo, Inc. v. Klapatiuk tested the limits of the right to sell.